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Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) has announced its amnesty for drug dealers will end at the start of June and that anyone continuing to sell drugs afterwards could be killed.

RAAD issued the sinister warning as they claimed responsibility for the shooting of a 24 year-old man in Cable Street in the Bogside area on Tuesday night.

The young man sustained a gunshot wound to the back of his leg after a group of masked men burst a bedroom in his Cable Street home and shot him.

The RAAD statement said; "Three volunteers entered and secured the house and one remained downstairs providing cover. A volunteer went upstairs and discovered the man hiding under his bed. The volunteer opened fire but the weapon jammed, forcing the second volunteer into action."

RAAD also said that the victim "should consider himself lucky" that the weapon's malfunction saved him from receiving the intended punishment.
The vigilante added that the man should "leave the country" or face "swift and severe punishment".

The armed group also said it has taken the decision to end its amnesty for drug dealers in just over six weeks' time.

"Following consultation with the wider community RAAD has decided to withdraw its blanket amnesty from June 1st. Individual cases may still be reviewed on their own merit in certain circumstances.

"RAAD has given ample opportunity to all death dealers to come forward and desist," the group said.

The vigilante group indicated it is prepared to kill anyone still selling drugs after the amnesty ends.

"Any anti-social gangs of individuals should now be under no illusion that the next knock on their door may be very well be their last," the statement said.

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I can't help but wonder what RAAD's intentions are, are they really concerned with peoples health enough to kill some people, or is it more about gaining support, or do they have a vested interest in the drug trade. Whatever the reasons their approach won't work because like most methods used in the costliest and unwinnable 'war on drugs' it has been tried and failed.

There's a lot of people who use drugs recreationally, there's also many people who have friends etc who use drugs, much more than when DAAD (direct action against drugs) was around in the early 2000's, society's attitude towards drugs has changed dramatically over the years, RAAD run the risk of having the opposite effect to what they wanted. Republicanism now looks like a brutal, oppressive, out of date regime and rightly so. It would be interesting to know if drug use has dropped in Derry since RAAD came along or as I suspect people just go out of town to get their drugs.

There are a few areas I know of myself where death threats are issued to even USERS of H, it's not tolerated at all in a lot of areas, and as such I have been told that it is 5 times as expensive in Belfast than other mainland cities.

On the other hand a lot of the paramilitaries are big in the coke game, which would explain the shooting of the head shop owner in Londonderry and the burning of the head shops down in Dublin.

How long have RAAD been doing this/threatening to do it?Swim remembers when he was younger at the height of the shit, hearing regularly about drug dealers, sometimes barely teenagers,(probably runners), getting kneecapped with AK's.

Is SWIM wrong in assuming that during the process of tarring and feathering someone, Molten or boiling liquid tar is poured over the persons body resulting in horrific burns and is very difficult to remove?

Back then you'd get it for anything though, joyriding round a certain estate, stealing, etc. etc. Didn't some lad get crucified a few years back for 'breaking the rules'.

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I've only heard of this group RAAD recently.

He got crucified for constantly stealing and joyriding cars from residents in his own estate, threatening the lives of the people there and stealing their property. He was then forced to change his name in hospital because of continued death threats.

A lot of shit about paramilitaries is just that: Shit. But there are plently of estates where they still have the power to threaten, intimadate and dish out punishment, with mostly the full support of the community, ESPECIALLY when it comes to heroin, or someone cutting in on their coke/weed trade

What type of Dealers are the Target?
How much stuff is needed to be on the list?Heroin, Cocaine, Weed?

Did not the IRA done something very similar in the '80?

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What type of dealers are the target/ They type that are not paying their cut to the likes of the Real IRA. The PIRA did indeed do they same thing in the 90's. They were very selective in which dealers they targeted, mainly the ones who weren't paying the PIRA to allow them to deal.

Didn't some lad get crucified a few years back for 'breaking the rules'.

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That young lad did indeed get crucified for stealing cars. Only months previously he got both is ankles broke for doing the same thing. Terrible thing to a happen to anyone, but after getting both ankles broken he should have thought about taking another path.

What is the government doing to put an end to RAAD? Do they even care? It sounds like they condone it. I have never heard of RAAD until now, being American.

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This sort of shit has been going on for decades in NI, whether it's under the guise of the Real IRA, RAAD, PIRA etc. etc.

Of course there's peaks and troughs of violence, but it seems like whenever an extremist paramilitary group dissipate, and subsequently stop dishing out ridiculously violent punishments, a year or so later, another group, under another name will spring up, ready to pick up the guns.

RAAD's pretty new though I think, and as far as swim knows, it's the first group solely devoted to drugs.

They've really started heavy though.....problem is, as someone's mentioned, on most of the estates, especially when it comes to heroin, the community tend to back the violence fully, being distrustful of the police for years.

Here's a couple of updates, RAAD seem to be making good on their word............

Pipe bomb found in Londonderry

Army and police have dealt with a pipe bomb device which was discovered in the Westland Villas area of Londonderry. It has been taken away for examination.

Earlier police said a "criminal gang" has claimed responsibility for two overnight explosions in Derry. [IMGR="red"]http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14255&stc=1&d=1271755290[/IMGR]

It is understood Republican Action Against Drugs (Raad) threw a pipe bomb at a house in Spruce Meadows in Culmore.

A family of seven escaped injury after the pipe bomb exploded near their home.

The police became aware of another device in the city only after Raad claimed responsibility for it.

Police said the group claimed a device, which partially exploded, was thrown at a house in the Westland Street area.

The pipe bomb in Spruce Meadows caused extensive damage to a car and damage to the front of the house.

Inspector Jon Burrows said they were investigating a link to drugs, and that people who engaged in such violence were the "enemies of everyone".

"Everyone needs to unite together to give us the information to put them behind bars," he continued.

"If anyone had of been close to that pipe bomb when it exploded they could have been very seriously injured, or indeed killed."

Republican Action Against Drugs have targeted at least 15 men in the city in recent months.

Evacuated

Two adults and five children were in the Spruce Meadows house at the time of the attack but no-one was injured.

Army technical officers examined the scene and removed the remains the device for further examination.

A number of nearby houses were evacuated for a short time.

Darren Curry lives in the area and said families had been left shocked.

"You probably wouldn't expect that to happen here, it's a very quiet area. We've only moved in recently and we've found no trouble at all," he said.

"It's just an awful shock that people could come in and actually do that and cause disruption and not have any fear for anybody that lived here."

Police have appealed for people to exercise caution and not to touch any unusual or suspicious items.

Armed attacks on suspected drug dealers takes attention away from the real debate on how to tackle the drugs problem, People Before Profit Alliance candidate Eamonn McCann has said.

The Socialist campaigner made his remarks after a 24 year-old man was shot in the leg in a paramilitary-style attack in Cable Street on Tuesday night.

Mr McCann says such attacks will not solve the drugs problem. "It shifts the axis of debate away from the real issues arising from drugs abuse and focuses attention on the morality and acceptability of armed action.

"What's more, using violence as a means of combating drugs hasn't worked anywhere in the world. Closer to home, there's a huge drugs problem in Belfast – where 11 people were shot dead by the so-called Direct Action Against Drugs in the early 1990s.

"The short-term advantage of putting hard cases out of action will be outweighed in the long-term by the effects of criminalising many others," he added.

The election candidate also said young people need to be involved in anti-drugs strategies. "Any drugs policy which isn't devised with the active involvement of the young people it is aimed at will fail. Peer pressure is big factor in youngsters taking to drugs. Peer pressure is the best way of turning that around.

"Young people need accurate information about the dangers of drugs. Whether it's by government agencies or armed vigilantes, for example, it's counterproductive to imply to young people that cannabis is as harmful as heroin or crack cocaine - or that there's something about it which automatically "leads on" to harder drugs. Skunk is much stronger than "ordinary" cannabis - just as vodka is much stronger than beer. But nobody trying to cut down on alcohol consumption would begin by pretending there's no difference," he said.

A few more updates, I hope to get speaking to some people from Derry later on today to find out what the situation is.......

RAAD says it plans to 'execute' bomb target

A Derry vigilante group has said it plans to "execute" a man who they named as the intended target of their pipe bomb attack in the Spruce Meadows area of Culmore yesterday morning.
In a statement to the Journal, they said: "Volunteers tried to gain entry to the property with the intention of executing him but they were prevented from doing so due to security measures at the property."

The armed group, which has claimed more than dozen shootings in the city since last year, added the chilling message: "As long as he remains in Ireland, he will remain a target for RAAD."

PSNI Inspector Jon Burrows said a drugs' link "is one thing" his officers are investigating.

He also hit out at those behind the attack, saying those who engaged in such violence were the "enemies of everyone".

Around 20 residents, some of them children, were evacuated from their homes at around 1.30am after the pipe bomb exploded at the front of the house. The blast caused extensive damage to a white Mercedes and some damage to the front of the house. The two adults and five children inside the property at the time were not injured.

Inspector Burrows said the device had the potential to kill.

"If anyone had been close to that pipe bomb when it exploded, they could have been very seriously injured or, indeed, killed."

He branded those behind the attack as "cowardly and selfish criminals".

The attack was yesterday roundly condemned by local politicians.

RAAD have also warned that a man they targeted in a pipe bomb attack in the Westland Street area of the Bogside on Sunday night "will be shot on sight as he has failed to heed previous warnings" over allegedly selling illegal drugs.

The man was also named in a RAAD statement last year about a pipe-bomb attack in the Bogside area.

Brutality breeds brutality. Lawlessness breeds lawlessness.
Punishment beatings/shootings say more about those who carry them out than those on the receiving end. There is no justification which supports beating people to a pulp with nail-studded clubs, shooting them in the legs or hurling explosive devices at their property.

Even the most primitive society would not tolerate such behaviour.

There must be no equivocation from anyone. There is no justification for punishment beatings/shootings.

Not only are they wrong in principle, but the manner of their execution is inhuman.

Through the exercise of "community policing", paramilitary/vigilante groups hope to gain an increasing foothold within their respective communities, thereby increasing their power and control and dominating the neighbourhoods through the instillation of fear.

The victims of these attacks and intimidation are not simply the individuals whom they directly concern, but their families and friends.

If these attacks, and the reasons for them, are allowed to continue unabated, we will merely succeed in creating a society that is completely "ghettoised".

So is it legal to shoot and kill random drug dealers in Ireland or something? Cause it seems as if the local or national government should have taken some form of action against this type of vigilante "justice".